c 

$ 3*  b 


$lam  Calk 


on 

(going  to  College 


H>f)urtleff  College  bulletin 

Vol.  XIV  JANUARY,  1921  N^Tl 


Issued  quarterly  by  the  Trustees  of  Shurtleff  College,  Alton,  111. 
Entered  as  second-class  matter  February  II,  1908,  at  the  Post 
Office  at  Alton.  111.,  under  Act  of  Congress  of  July  16.  1894. 


l—ll— ll— Ill— 


Plain  Talk  On  Going 
to  College 

IF  YOU  are  about  to  finish  high  school,  you 
are  considering  whether  a college  education 
will  pay  better  than  the  same  time  spent  in 
business.  That  depends  entirely  on  what  it 
costs  and  what  you  get  out  of  it. 

What  Does  It  Cost? 

In  money  terms,  the  average  college  education 
costs  $500  a year,  including  your  board  and 
room.  As  you  pay  for  your  living  whether  you 
are  in  college  or  not,  the  actual  cost  of  education 
to  you  is  very  much  less. 


On  this  basis,  college  education  is  one  of  the 
greatest  bargains  in  the  world.  When  you  buy 


Page  two 


an  ordinary  commodity,  you  expect  to  pay 
something  more  than  what  it  cost.  When  you 
buy  education,  you  pay  only  one-third  of  the 
cost.  The  rest  is  made  up  by  friends  of  the 
institution. 

The  cost  in  time  is  equally  reasonable.  Look- 
ing ahead,  the  four  years  from  18  to  22  seem  a 
long  time,  but  in  their  proper  perspective  those 
years  are  a very  short  period  of  preparation. 
Most  men  do  not  retire  from  active  business 
before  they  are  60,  so  that  college  days  are  little 
more  than  one-tenth  of  your  working  life. 


18  to  22 


Then,  too,  these  years  are  the  least  productive 
financially.  Average  earnings  of  high  school 
graduates  are  very  small  compared  to  the  earning 
power  of  a trained  man  in  middle  life.  But  the 
earlier  period  is  worth  infinitely  more  in  ca- 
pacity to  learn  and  develop.  There  are  many 
subjects  such  as  foreign  languages  that  it  is 
virtually  impossible  to  master  after  you  have 
passed  the  college  age. 


What  Do  You  Get? 

Bishop  McDowell  has  said  that  it  is  as  im- 
possible to  estimate  what  you  owe  to  your  col- 
lege as  it  is  to  measure  what  you  owe  to  your 
own  mother.  Still  there  are  certain  standards 
by  which  we  can  judge  of  the  more  concrete 
values  of  college  education.  First  of  all  applying 
the  lowest  test: — 


Page  three 


Does  It  Pay  Financially? 

Figured  on  the  basis  of  average  earning  power 
over  a period  of  years,  each  day  of  schooling 
according  to  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Edu- 
cation is  worth  $9  to  the  student.  In  other 
words,  one  who  stays  out  of  school  to  earn  less 
than  $9  a day  is  losing,  not  making  money. 
This  is  due  both  to  the  larger  salaries  received  by 
educated  men  and  to  the  rapid  increase  in  their 
pay  after  they  leave  school.  The  average  in- 
come of  the  Yale  class  of  1906  after  their  gradu- 
ation was: 


First  year $740 

Second  year 968 

Third  year 1 286 

Fourth  year 1 522 

Fifth  year 1885 


It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  average  income  of 
members  of  that  class,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Princeton  class  of  1901,  during  their  tenth  year 
out  of  college  was  about  $4,000.  Similar  figures 
are  available  from  many  colleges  which  show  the 
money  value  of  their  training. 

What  Business  Men  Say 

The  best  test  of  the  financial  rating  of  a 
college  course  is  the  judgment  of  leading  men  in 
financial  and  business  life.  Do  they  put  their 
money  into  it?  Do  they  advise  you  to  put  your 
time  into  it? 

The  list  of  prominent  business  men  who  in  the 
days  of  their  best  judgment  considered  college 
a wise  investment  is  too  long  to  set  down.  It 
includes  men  like  Carnegie,  Rockefeller,  Pear- 
sons, Jim  Hill,  Frick,  Severance,  Stanford. 
Many  of  these  men  did  not  enjoy  educational 

Page  four 


advantages,  but  they  respected  them.  Scores  of 
other  leaders  in  the  financial  world  have  given  of 
their  time  and  money  to  colleges  so  that  you 
might  have  the  best  that  education  can  offer. 

Would  they  advise  YOU  to  go  to  college  next 
fall?  Ask  them.  We  could  quote  many  such 
men  advising  you  to  go.  Here  are  the  words  of 
two  who  felt  the  lack  of  a college  course.  Their 
business  judgment  would  be  valued  in  any  bank 
or  commercial  enterprise  in  the  country  today. 

George  M.  Reynolds,  the  biggest  banker  in 
the  west,  says: 

“I  would  like  to  impress  on  boys  ‘GO  TO 
COLLEGE.’  1 did  not  go.  But  I recog- 
nize that  the  man  who  does  has  a tremen- 
dous handicap  over  the  boy  who  has  to  plod 
step  by  step  through  the  school  of  ex- 
perience.’’ 

The  greatest  steel  maker  in  the  world,  Charles 
M.  Schwab,  writes: 

“Today  industrial  conditions  favor  the 
college  man.  Business  is  conducted  on  so 
vast  a scale  that  the  broadening  effects  of 
higher  education  write  a large  figure.’’ 

It  would  not  be  fair  to  assume  that  you  will 
“make  good’’  in  business  simply  because  you  are 
a college  man,  or  fail  for  lack  of  that  training. 
The  real  situation  is  best  stated  in  the  words  of  a 
prominent  educator: 

“Considering  the  time  of  life  when  the 
work  of  education  ought  to  be  done,  the 
most  costly  education  with  the  minimum  of 
results  is  that  which  is  picked  up  here  and 
there  as  life  presents  opportunities  and  as 
boys  improve  them.  With  their  well  or- 
dered and  enriched  courses,  the  colleges 
effect  for  young  men  an  enormous  saving  of 
time  and  costly  mistakes.’’ 


Page  five 


Nor  is  this  merely  a question  of  getting 
routine  knowledge  more  quickly  and  systemati- 
cally. 

Charles  Sabin,  president  of  one  of  the  largest 
trust  companies,  writes: 

“Every  employer  is  looking  for  the  man 
who  can  think.  One  can  hire  any  number 
of  people  marvelously  skilled  in  routine  or 
in  detail — human  machines  that  will  run  on 
splendidly  as  long  as  nothing  unusual  turns 
up.  The  well  trained  college  man  grasps 
intricate  situations  and  reduces  them  to 
essentials  much  more  quickly  than  the 
equally  well  trained  man  who  has  not  had 
the  advantage  of  the  broader  fundamental 
education.” 

George  W.  Perkins  also  stated  that: 

“One  of  the  greatest  advantages  in  a 
college  training  is  that  the  earnest  student 
can  learn  to  think  straight.” 

These  words  of  big  business  men  should  count 
heavily  with  those  of  us  who  must  make  our 
way  in  the  paths  which  they  have  marked  out. 


Page  six 


College  and  Leadership 

A college  course  does  not  guarantee  that  you 
will  be  a leader  in  your  chosen  occupation.  But 
college  training  does  guarantee  that  your  chances 
of  becoming  a leader  are  multiplied  many  times. 

By  the  very  fact  of  higher  education  you  are 
given  an  advantage  over  the  great  mass  of  yoyr 
generation.  Only  those  of  exceptional  ability  or 
opportunity  ever  qualify  for  entering  college. 

“Gather  into  one  group  10,000  children”  says 
President  Thwing,  “and  send  none  of  them  to 


Out  of  every  1000  Pupils 
who  entered  the 
First  Grade  in  1903-1904 


600 

Finished  the  Eighth  Grade 


300 

Entered  High  School 


m 

Finished  High  School 
in  1915-1916 


38  | entered  College  | 38 


□ 


Will  Graduate  14  from  College 
this  Year 


Page  seven 


college.  Only  one  of  them  will  attain  dis- 
tinction. Gather  into  another  group  40  college 
graduates  and  one  of  them  will  attain  dis- 
tinction.” Will  you  be  lost  among  the  10,000 
or  become  one  of  the  40? 


In  Who’s  Who  1917 


tl  College  Graduates  59% 
H Others  College  Trained  14% 
D No  College  Training  27% 


Few  college  men  secure  positions  of  leadership 
the  first  or  even  the  tenth  year  after  graduation. 
But  take  them  in  the  prime  of  life  when  they 
have  had  time  to  bring  to  bear  all  that  the 

Page  eight 


college  has  given  them  of  ability  to  think,  to 
adjust  themselves  to  new  situations,  to  under- 
stand men,  to  express  their  personality,  and 
college  trained  men  are  at  the  front  in  every 
walk  of  life. 

One-third  of  the  men  included  in  Appleton’s 
Cyclopedia  of  American  Biography  are  college 
trained.  Who’s  Who  for  1917,  which  contains 
the  latest  classification  by  education  shows  a 
striking  preponderance  of  college  graduates 
although  only  one  man  in  50  in  the  entire  country  is  an 
alumnus  of  a college.  Do  not  voluntarily  throw 
away  your  chance  of  some  measure  of  leadership 
and  distinctive  service  to  your  fellows  if  it  is 
humanly  possible  for  you  to  enjoy  the  advan- 
tages indicated  by  this  overwhelming  evidence 
in  getting  your  start  at  the  college. 


College  and  Life 

It  is  natural  that  the  first  test  of  the  value  of 
college  training  should  be  its  helpfulness  in 
enabling  you  to  make  a living.  That  is  in- 
dispensable. But  a far  more  distinctive  service 
is  its  help  in  making  you  live.  When  Aristotle 
was  asked  how  the  educated  man  differed  from 
the  uneducated,  he  answered:  “As  the  living 
differ  from  the  dead.”  That  is  still  the  idea  of 
education.  You  will  find  your  college  days 
“crammed”  with  activity  and  hustle;  not  mere 
routine,  not  seclusion,  but  the  broadest  possible 
contact  with  the  best  thought  and  action  and 
men  of  all  time.  And  with  your  own  time  as 
well.  No  groups  of  equal  size  rose  to  the 


Page  nine 


emergency  of  the  world  war  more  quickly  or  more 
unanimously  than  college  students  and  faculties. 
This  breadth  of  view  and  richness  of  experience 
beyond  the  narrow  horizon  of  your  “bread  and 
butter’’  routine  is  something  many  successful 
business  men  have  longed  for  in  later  life. 
College  gives  you  this  contact;  mere  getting  a 
living  does  not. 

The  best  expression  of  what  college  does  for  a 
man  along  this  line  is  in  the  words  of  President 
Hyde  of  Bowdoin  college: 

“To  be  at  home  in  all  lands  and  all  ages; 
to  count  Nature  a familiar  acquaintance  and 
Art  an  intimate  friend;  to  gain  a standard 
for  the  appreciation  of  other  men’s  work  and 
the  criticism  of  one’s  own;  to  make  friends 
among  the  men  of  one’s  own  age  who  are  to 
be  leaders  in  all  walks  of  life;  to  lose  oneself 
in  generous  enthusiasms  and  co-operate  with 
others  for  common  ends;  to  learn  manners 
from  students  who  are  gentlemen;  and  to 
form  character  under  professors  who  are 
Christians — these  are  the  returns  of  a col- 
lege for  the  best  four  years  of  one’s  life.’’ 


Spiritual  Values  in  College  Life 

College  training  is  not  complete  when  it  gives 
you  material  success  or  even  culture.  Its  aim 
is  not  to  make  us  seem  greater  to  the  world  but 
to  make  the  world  seem  greater  to  us.  Mere 
technical  education  develops  more  perfect  things 
but  less  perfect  men.  Germany  demonstrated 
that  material  training  without  spiritual  values  is 
a failure.  But  from  the  beginning  the  Christian 
college  has  taught  men  to  develop  more  perfect 
material  things  and  to  apply  them  to  higher 


Page  ten 


ideals  in  life.  It  trains  head  and  heart  to- 
gether. In  other  words,  it  is  frankly  religious. 

How  Expressed 

You  will  like  the  way  colleges  express  their 
religion.  Students  do  not  constantly  and  bla- 
tantly talk  about  their  deepest  spiritual  experi- 
ences any  more  than  our  war  heroes  went  about 
discussing  their  patriotism  before  the  war.  But 
the  spirit  is  there  and  you  will  feel  it. 


One  way  of  expressing  religion  in  a Christian 
college  is  its  spirit  of  reverence.  It  is  easy  to  do 
your  best  and  to  make  the  most  of  yourself  in 
an  atmosphere  like  that. 

Equally  noticeable  in  college  life  is  its  spirit 
of  service.  Many  men  and  women  there  are 
looking  forward  to  more  than  the  accumulation 


Page  eleven 


of  money  or  prestige.  They  are  testing  their 
powers  and  developing  their  capacities  for  the 
highest  usefulness  as  citizens,  in  business  or  the 
home,  in  whatever  calling  they  follow.  The 
courses  have  been  broadened  to  prepare  men  for 
many  lines  of  work  so  that  a smaller  per  cent  of 
college  graduates  now  go  into  the  ministry  of 
the  church.  But  most  of  them  enter  the  minis- 
try of  life  in  its  larger  sense.  Service  is  the  key- 
note of  student  days  and  the  records  of  college 
graduates  all  over  the  country  show  that  it  has 
been  the  master-spirit  of  college  men  all  through 
life. 

Education  at  a Christian  college  is  complete, 
well  rounded,  well  proportioned,  and  the  young 
man  is  fortunate  who  finds  such  an  institution  at 
the  threshold  of  his  life. 


Page  twelve 


By-Products 

If  we  had  already  enumerated  all  the  ad- 
vantages of  college  life,  it  would  more  than  repay 
your  time  and  interest.  This  is  not  all,  however. 
There  are  by-products — many  of  them — each 
with  a distinct  value. 

First  of  all,  college  means  a good  time.  This 
includes  athletics  and  debating  and  social 
activities.  It  includes  other  things  of  greater 
importance.  Alice  Freeman  Palmer,  when  she 
was  president  of  Wellesley,  once  said  that  college 
life  ought  to  be  the  best  sort  of  good  time — not 
the  good  time  of  self-indulgence  or  moving  along 
lines  of  least  resistance,  but  the  good  time  of 
generous  friendships  and  high  ideals.  College 
days  are  happy  days,  full  of  enjoyment  and  fun. 
Students  do  not  go  to  college  for  pleasure,  but 
they  have  a good  time  while  they  are  going  to 
college.  That  is  one  of  the  by-products.  Listen 
to  any  of  them  talk  about  their  inter- 
ests, or  better  still,  to  a group  of  old 
graduates.  You  will  get  a new  idea  of 
what  college  life  means  in  enjoyment 
and  friendship  and  happy  memories. 

There  is  a freedom  of  as- 
sociation that  is  rare  in  the 
business  world. 

Again  and  again 


Page  thirteen 


you  will  hear  the  non-college  man  express  his 
regret  that  he  has  no  school  to  go  back  to,  no 
place  of  which  he  can  say  all  through  life — “This 
is  my  Alma  Mater.  I am  a part  of  all  the 
young  life  that  will  flow  through  this  institu- 
tion as  long  as  life  lasts.”  Old  men  of  eighty 
and  young  men  of  twenty-two  come  back  to 
Commencement  year  after  year;  it  “gets”  them 
all.  The  best  associations  of  life  center  around 
their  college. 

Without  any  particular  effort  in  that  direction, 
the  average  college  is  a splendid  type  of  de- 
mocracy. Here  you  have  real  equality  of  oppor- 
tunity. This,  too,  is  one  of  the  by-products. 
Very  rarely  will  you  find  elsewhere  in  society 
a group  in  which  all  the  members  are  of  practi- 
cally the  same  age  and  with  the  same  degree  of 
preparation.  The  college  gives  this.  Certainly 
nowhere  else  can  you  find  a place  where  family 
influence  and  money  and  the  externals  of  social 
prestige  count  less  and  your  own  merit  more. 
Whether  your  father  has  a million  or  is  a day 
laborer  will  make  very  little  difference  to  your 
roommate  or  your  classmate.  On  the  other 
hand,  what  YOU  do  and  what  YOU  are  is  all 
important.  You  will  meet  students  from  many 
lands  and  from  every  class  in  society  and  the 
invariable  rule  is  “May  the  best  man  win.”  It 
is  unconscious  democracy  in  practice.  Many  a 
man  works  his  way  through  school  by  doing  jobs 
that  would  reflect  on  his  social  standing  at  any 
place  but  a college.  Waiting  on  table,  janitor 
service — these  are  common  occupations  and 
students  who  secure  their  education  by  such 
sacrifice  are  honored  the  more  for  their  spirit. 

College  days  are  a fine  training  for  citizenship. 
Each  student  has  a place  in  the  activities  of  the 


Page  fourteen 


little  commonwealth.  From  the  day  he  enters 
school,  he  learns  a lesson  in  loyalty  that  is  in- 
valuable. The  army  called  it  esprit  de  corps  and 
took  infinite  pains  to  develop  it.  In  school  we 
call  it  college  spirit  and  find  its  expression  every- 
where. You  hear  it  in  the  college  yell  and  the 
college  song.  You  see  it  on  the  football  field  and 
the  track.  Those  are  some  of  the  outward  ex- 
pressions. In  a quieter  way  it  means  the 
willingness  of  each  student  to  give  the  best  he 
has  for  his  school — every  ounce  of  strength  in 
the  game,  every  moment  of  time  in  grinding 
preparation.  LOYALTY — that  is  the  keynote 
of  college  spirit — not  loyalty  exhausted  when 
you  have  given  the  yell  or  celebrated  a victory. 
Loyalty  to  your  fellow-students,  to  yourself,  to 
your  college  is  the  rule.  And  not  mere  loyalty 
to  the  buildings  and  old  associations  but  to  THE 
THINGS  THE  COLLEGE  STANDS  FOR. 

It  is  in  this  spirit  that  you  will  find  fellowship 
with  the  best  movements  and  men  of  your  time 
and  become  a member  of  that  larger  company 
who  are  placing  the  stamp  of  college  ideals  and 
loyalty  on  the  nation. 


Page  fifteen 


05953 


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Faithorn  Co.,  Chicago 


